Thursday, December 17, 2009

I worked for years in a photo lab. It was an interesting job because part of it was having to look at all the pictures. I say "having" because it was required that we look at all of them. Mainly to check quality but also because the police expected us to - we were expected to report any instances of child/animal abuse immediately. Believe it or not, this happened about once per year. Tell me you are abusing a child or animal and the first thing you think of is taking a picture? And then taking it for developing! Weird. People are fucked.

Anyhow other than those pics, the pics routinely developed were of a variety of things, but the most common ones were:
1. Niagara Falls
2. Weddings
3. Pets

Now this was in a time when people didn't really have digital cameras and everyone still used film. I miss film somewhat, the romance of not knowing what is going to be in that envelope is special. However, taking a million shots of something to get it just right with no additonal cost is hard to beat. So, I shoot digital even though I have an amazing film camera. I miss it. If I was richer, I'd use it all the time. In fact, if I was richer, I'd develop the (at least) 50 films I have in cold storage waiting to be developed. Maybe for an xmas gift to myself.....

Anyhow...

I was always fascinated when someone would bring in an entire roll of 24 pictures, all of their dog or cat. Fascinated in a 'what-the-fuck?' kind of way. (Incidentally, take pictures of your pets outside please. They look like crap indoors, and they get red eyes.) I couldn't ever figure WHY someone would want 24 photos of their cat, but then again I'm not a cat person. Or dog person, for that matter. But, maybe they were hoping for a good one to frame as a gift, or to take with them away for University. I can give the benefit of the doubt, even though what I honestly thought and suspected was that these people just literally had no one and nothing else to photograph. So to deal with their lonliness, they shot their pets. It's charming, in a weird way, I guess.

The modern version of this is people posting whole albums of photos of their cat on facebook. I will reiterate that I am not a pet person so maybe I'm missing the point. But why the fuck would anyone care to look at 124 pictures of your cat? I find this to be a growing trend too. It's like people are posting pictures of their cat the way they would a new baby.
I wanted to post this in my facebook status but I am a considerate person and I do not wish to offend those who deeply love their pets. I don't know why I care really. But I do. So, I will say it here.

People. No one gives a shit about your cat or dog. Please stop posting pictures of them.